Ten Tips for Planning Success
December is a great time to complete your communications planning for the coming year. Make sure 2006 starts off with a bang by using this time to set goals, priorities and benchmarks of success for the new year and determine strongest opportunities for using communications to meet these goals and benchmarks. To get you off to a good start, Spitfire offers the following end-of-the-year tips.
Ten Things You Can Do Now to Ensure Communications Success in 2006
• Hold a Staff Brainstorming Meeting
Give your staff an opportunity to weigh in on the communications challenges and opportunities your organization faces over the next year with a brainstorming session. By including all staff members in an open idea exchange, you can hear a variety of perspectives, review your goals, mission and vision, and create staff support for new communications efforts in the new year. Make sure everyone has a chance to participate and share ideas - even if some of them won't go beyond the meeting room. Encouraging participation now will help you secure buy-in later.
• Identify Key Partnerships
Identify the top five partnerships or coalitions that you would like to secure over the next year in order to strengthen your position in the field, strengthen your communications impact and/or expand your audience base.
• Investigate New Media - Blogging and Podcasting
Blogs and podcasts are becoming increasingly popular tools for Internet outreach. These two mediums can bring a fresh approach to your communications activities by helping you expand your audience base and generate more traffic to your Web site.
Blogging: With rising status as a media outlet, blogs can be an effective tool for organizations looking for new ways to reach target audiences. Think about developing your own blog or pitching issue-specific blogs with news on your issue or organization. For more info on developing your own blogs, check out past Spitfire Recommends. And check back in 2006 for tips on getting your news out to the blogosphere as a new media outreach tool.
Podcasting: Podcasting, a way to disseminate audio and video over the Internet, enables individuals to create self-published, syndicated "shows." Podcasting is a useful tool for politicians, campaigns, political groups and nonprofits due to the direct access it provides to their audiences. Commit time next year to looking more closely at this new communications trend and the implications for your input and output of information for key audiences, like youth or other tech-savvy audiences. (Visit Voxmedia Wiki and Podcast411 to learn more about podcasting.)
• Catch Up on 2005's Communications Reads
Stay up-to-date on new communications trends with four great books from 2005. Check out:
Learn more about the power of branding with Brand Hijack: Marketing Without Marketing. By Alex Wipperfurth
Following the success of the Tipping Point, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, explores the psychology of decision making. By Malcolm Gladwell
Understanding the power of persuasion in your communications is highlighted in Kevin Hogan's The Psychology of Persuasion: How to Persuade Others to Your Way of Thinking
Avoid the pitfalls of nonprofit communications in a book that challenges "jargon-infested, public-interest speak": When Words Fail by Tony Proscio
• Monitor the Mid-term Elections
How do your issues fit into the political landscape leading up to the 2006 mid-term elections? Use December down-time to think about your messaging and planning around the elections and how you can use this to build support around your issues. Look at the candidates, their agendas and how key races may influence your advocacy efforts.
• Track Important State Issues
Don't let important state issues pass you by. Legislative issues, including pending bills carried over from the previous session, and upcoming ballot initiatives, can be important for identifying opportunities to communicate your message. Visit StateLine.org to stay updated on your issue as well as state policy issues across the country.
• Plan for Annual Events/Conferences
Identify annual events or conferences important to your organization. Send letters of interest and develop a follow up strategy for securing your staff and other spokespeople as speakers at each event.
• Develop a Communications Calendar
As you are lining up important opportunities like elections and conferences, begin pulling together a master communications calendar for 2006. For more details on this, check out Spitfire's tips on Planning Your 2005 Communications Calendar.
• Build Media Skills
Give you and your staff an edge in the media realm by attending trainings. Attending these sessions provides new techniques and an outlet to network with other organizations. Check out Media Bistro and the Public Relations Society of America for media trainings.
• Pull It All Together With the Smart Chart!
The Spitfire Strategies Smart Chart can help you get your plans in order by providing a framework and guidance for developing a communications effort that supports your top goals for the new year. Now available in an online version, the Interactive Smart Chart provides a step-by-step process for creating your next high-impact communications campaign.
